How Texas Motor Speedway’s Eddie Gossage nearly landed the Texas - Oklahoma game

Among the mountains of memorabilia in Eddie Gossage’s office is an autographed photo he took with a famous/infamous sports promoter.

It reads, “To a great promoter, Eddie Gossage! Best wishes, Don King”

Eddie Gossage and Don King could not be any more different, and yet they are twins. They are also the last of their breed.

When Gossage begins the unenviable process of cleaning out his office at Texas Motor Speedway next week, he will be essentially closing two eras.

1.) His memorable tenure as the president/GM of TMS.

2.) His reign as one of the last of the old school sports’ promoters from the Don King/Bill Veeck strain who understood what it takes to brashly promote, and sell, an event.

“The only way I know how to compete with others is to make as much noise as I can make so people pay attention to us,” Gossage, 62, said Friday. “How do you do that? A monkey selling souvenir programs. Scoring tower blows over (which happened), and the first thing you do is call the media and the second thing you do is make sure the power is off so no one gets electrocuted.”

No one could have made a race track, and its events, more relevant any better than Eddie Gossage.

“Early to bed. Early to rise. Work like hell and advertise,” Gossage said, reciting a famous Veeck line. “That’s Bill Veeck. And that’s me. Not sure the early to rise part, though.”

The NASCAR All-Star race this weekend at TMS will be Gossage’s last as he plans to retire. He wanted to retire two years ago, but was talked into staying and so now this is it.

Although he had a cancer scare years ago, he says his health is fine. He’s just ready to move on.

Here is Eddie Gossage, in his own words, telling some of his funnier moments from his 25 years at TMS.

S-T: What did you personally think that would work but it bombed?

Eddie Gossage: Oh, they were all great.

In February of 2001, Dale Earnhardt passed away [in a crash at Daytona]. A year later, Sports Illustrated did a story about ‘Lil’ Dale,’ which was a goat that was born less than an hour away from Daytona Speedway.

His fur came in and he had a perfect ‘3’ on his side. I said I must have ‘Lil’ Dale.’ I called this older couple who had him, and I wanted to buy it. They wouldn’t sell it. I offered $15,000. We stayed in touch.

I wanted, when the time came, to take Lil’ Dale to a taxidermist and have him stuffed. So after he ‘crossed the bridge’ we got him. This was about five years ago, and I wanted to put him on the driver introduction stage, and as the driver’s walk by they rub his head for good luck.

Or we can put him in the Speedway Club, and have a Lil’ Dale cocktail.

I reach out to Dale Earnhardt Jr., and told him the story and we are going to introduce him. I wanted him to see Lil’ Dale, and he was not crazy about it. He never called me.

I see him the Sunday before the race and he said, ‘Eddie, it’s kinda creepy. I don’t think I’m interested.’

So Lil’ Dale didn’t go over real big.

S-T: Bristol Motor Speedway held a college football game in 2016 between Tennessee and Virginia Tech; why hasn’t Texas Motor Speedway had a football game?

EG: I get the paper one morning years back and I read the Texas-Oklahoma game is perhaps [available]. That the Cotton Bowl was not acceptable. Before I got to the front door I thought, ‘I know what I’m doing today.’

I had a crew paint a football field on the front grass area, between pit row and the front stretch. It was made specifically to have a football field. So I had Texas and Oklahoma painted in opposite end zones.

I called [Oklahoma AD] Joe Castiglione and [Texas AD) DeLoss Dodds.

Castiglione said, ‘We need to talk.’ DeLoss just cussed me out.

He said, ‘You have been planning this. I see you have a football field already. You don’t just do this overnight.’

I said, ‘It took about four hours. I’ll send my guys down to Austin and show you how they do it.’

He said, ‘Oh, you’re a smart a--.’

I said, ‘No, I’m telling you the truth.’

Dodds killed it. Any chance we had he killed it immediately.

The Bristol thing proves that you can do it. Maybe not every year, but once every four years or so.

S-T: Any event you had that you kick yourself for trying?

EG: Labor Day weekend we had two IMSA races. It was 2,000 degrees, and people attended in the hundreds. Unbelievable how bad it was.

We had a promoter who rented the dirt track out here for a Julianne Hough concert [in 2010]. Eight tickets sold.

I don’t blame her. It was not promoted at all. I think the person was a Julianne Hough fan and paid her to do a concert for them. Nobody knew about it to buy a ticket.

S-T: Anything you wanted but didn’t get?

EG: We tried to bring the X Games here and had a great shot at it. Just didn’t work out.

S-T: Did NASCAR ever call you into the office for anything?

EG: I got called into the office one time, and I was supposed to go down to the NASCAR truck. They said we want to talk to you. I said, ‘I’m not going down there.’ They wanted to talk about something, and I said they could talk about it, but I’m not going.

S-T: What were your favorite non-auto racing experiences you got to do because of this job?

EG: Bobsledding in Lake Placid, New York. Pretty cool. A ride in the Goodyear Blimp. Cross country motorcycle rides with Kyle Petty.

S-T: And a favorite thing you did here?

EG: Oh, there are so many. Look at Victory Lane. It means something for the drivers to win here because of our Victory Lane. Most look exactly the same. Ours doesn’t.

Ours has these flames, these semi-truck exhaust pipes with smoke comin’ out. Why are semi-exhaust pipes in a Victory Lane? Because it’s bad-ass.

I had previously done other ideas, on paper. We had a waterfall in one. Then, like a mission set up. But that wasn’t us. That was San Antonio.

Then we had ZZ Top do a concert here. I looked at their stage set, and that was it. Their mic’ stand was an exhaust pipe.

I liked it because it was macho, bad-ass, blah blah blah.

So now when a driver pulls in, and it doesn’t matter who it is, they want that cowboy hat and they want to shoot those six-shooters.

You have to have the thing. That was our thing and, other than Indianapolis, ours is the most recognized [Victory Lane] because it’s so much different.

You’ll hear, if there is a caution with eight laps to go, the crew chief or the driver is going to say, ‘OK, let’s buckle down. Let’s get the cowboy hat tonight.’